lemon ricotta pound cake with blackberry glaze

POUND CAKE! The name isn’t very elegant or exactly enticing, but I’ve never met a pound cake that I don’t like! Growing up, we’d often have a box of Entenmann’s pound cake on the table to be tucked into whenever I felt like having a snack. I would savor the slice of rich, delicious cake up to the very last bite!

But I’m here to tell you that we can do better than Entenmann’s! Not exaggerating.

I bought a big tub of ricotta cheese while grocery shopping because I often stroll the aisles instead of sticking to my shopping list! I like to pick out things that peak my interest and then think up ways to incorporate them into my baking and cooking!
My favorite pancakes are ricotta pancakes! Sure, they’re yummy when I make them at home, but I especially love them when I’m out at brunch with friends and family! Something about that beautifully prepared stack topped with bananas and strawberries. Every bite melts in my mouth! I just love brunch! Especially when I don’t have to do the dishes! 😉

So, as I’ve wanted to make pound cakes for soo long, I decided to make a ricotta pound cake! I just knew it would be a dreamy combination! And of course, I’m not the first person to think this up! The following recipe is adapted from Gina DePalma’s book “Dolce Italiano”. She uses cake flour in her recipe but I decided to stick with all purpose flour because it’s much simpler, and I always have that in my kitchen!

I’ve played around the with the ratio of ingredients a few times and finally came to the perfect concoction!

Believe me when I say that this is the PERFECT pound cake. It’s extremely moist, rich, tender, not too sweet, and spongey but not too dense. AND it’s so simple to make! No special resting periods or waiting around for this and that! Although my one important tip is to make sure that all the ingredients are at ROOM TEMPERATURE. That’s it. Before whipping this up, just get your butter, eggs, and ricotta cheese out on the counter to rest while you go walk the dogs or fold your laundry, and it’ll be ready to go when you’re back!

I have an obsession with berries. And glaze. Something about combining the two makes me soo excited! Berry glaze is not a new thing around here! It adds just the right amount of sharpness and tang to the cake to balance out the sweetness! But if you’re a purist, you can always go with a plain glaze or no glaze! I promise, it’ll taste amazing no matter what! So if you decide to go with the blackberry glaze, you can always make the fresh blackberry juice ahead of time– up to 4 days ahead, stored in the fridge! I always make things like this ahead of time just to keep things simpler and moving quickly on bake day!

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease the sides of a 9×5 loaf pan and line with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk to combine well. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine room temperature butter, ricotta cheese, and sugar. Beat for 5 minutes on medium high speed until well combined. It may look slightly curdled but that’s okay– it’s not! Add eggs, one at a time, on low speed, combining well for a minute between additions. Then add vanilla and lemon zest and combine well.

Remove bowl from mixer. Add flour mixture in two additions to the wet mixture. With a spatula, gently mix and fold until all the flour is fully incorporated. Do not over mix.

Pour mixture into loaf pan, smoothing out the top with the spatula.

Bake for 55-65 minutes, until the top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out mostly clean. Let cool in loaf pan for 5 minutes before lifting out and cooling on cooling rack. Cool completely.

To make blackberry juice, combine a cup of blackberries with a splash of water in a blender. Blend until smooth. Pour through a sieve into a bowl.

To make glaze, combine lemon juice, blackberry juice, and powdered sugar. Mix until smooth and drizzle over the completely cooled cake as desired. Serve and ENJOY!